so ive been using winamp forever and i hate it to death. they have the worst product and service i can imagine. i have foolishly bought the program like 3 times now because every time i upgrade my computer or OS and have to reinstall it, the cd key no longer unlocks a pro version , it registers as regular winamp and wont convert files. i have emailed this complaint to them and have never received any help so i have just lamely lined up for another copy.
there must be a better alternative out there for converting my wavs to 320k mp3s?
I use lame encoder.its freeware i believe on sourceforge just google it. You will likely have to download both the encoder and thr .bat which are separate. With thr two in the same folder you can drop the wav onto the bat and itll transfer to a mp3
This is a full music collection manager. I use it to rip, burn, tag, rearrange, convert, and play.
I rip and immediately convert to FLAC. FLAC is 55-65% the size of a WAC, supports native ID tags, and is lossless. Given the cost of disc space, it’s a no brainer to archive music in a lossless format. I convert to mp3 “as needed”. My DJ computer gets mp3’s @ 320. My iPhone gets mp3s @ 192.
On windows, the best converting software I ever used was dbpoweramp…unfortunately, no Mac version exists. Right now I use Max on my Mac, it’s free and does a decent job.
You know, I get what you’re saying here as I used to pretend to be an audiophile, but I disagree.
I convert all of my wav files to alac (used to use flac, but now that I do everything on a mac, alac just plays better) for safe keeping. The lossless codecs serve a great purpose of reducing a wav’s filesize and allowing metadata - it’s great for record keeping…but I feel kind of pointless for 90% of my listening purposes.
An mp3, encoded with LAME at 320 CBR or even 320 VBR, will give you pretty decent sound quality, especially for listening while driving, riding on the subway, listening on earbuds, your laptop at work, etc. Honestly, most clubs or parties I’ve been to have crap speakers that are so bass heavy you can’t make out any great audio clarity to begin with. I realize if you pay real close attention you might be able to tell the difference between an mp3 and an uncompressed audio file, but straining your ear to listen to the clarity of a high hat on a crap club sound system while you’re drunk and dancing your ass off doesn’t happen too often. At home, on a nice stereo where you can sit in front of it and focus on the sound of the music is a totally different situation.
I personally, don’t get the argument…mp3’s have their place as well as uncompressed files, but 90% of the time, I’m going to use the mp3. I don’t care, having a thousand of my favorite songs on my iphone trumps having 100.
In practical terms, I agree with this. I use mp3’s on my DJ systems for playback. Overall, my system is reasonably well balanced, and getting a “noticeable” improvement in sound quality will require replacing just about everything in the signal chain.
Even with that, I do rip & archive in FLAC. A pair of 1TB discs is <$200. That’s an archive of FLAC (and a backup for that) for about 2500 CDs. The economics almost demand that you do it…even if you don’t want to. My theory is that if in the distant future I can make use of something better than “mp3@320”…I won’t have to go back to the CDs to re-rip those songs.
On the audiophile argument, I agree 100%. I have met people who claim to be able to tell the difference, put them in a blind test, and not one of them got over 50% correct.
As for the OP, I agree on Media Monkey. If I didn’t switch over to Mac, I’d still be using it. Now, I just use iTunes for everything, but for handling WAV files, I use Adobe Soundbooth.
My theory is that if in the distant future I can make use of something better than “mp3@320”…I won’t have to go back to the CDs to re-rip those songs.